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The Hands Of An Angry God

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Ian Burke Mr. Giles Honors American Literature 6 Feb. 2015 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and The Crucible Essay Two coarse yet uniquely fragile societies, three hundred years apart, devoured by individual ideologies that permeated belief systems, that blinded, deafened, and muted citizens, and that ultimately led to gruesome hysteria. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, written by Jonathan Edwards in the mid-1700’s, is a sermon directed to a Puritan congregation urging with orthodox fervor for transgressors to repent. Arthur Miller wrote the allegorical play The Crucible in 1953, lively portraying the hysteria occurring during the Salem Witch Trials in an effort to describe his perceptions of the post-war climate of McCarthyism and the sheer terror of Communism. In the pulpit oratory “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God”, Edwards eloquently uses imagery, metaphors, and symbolism in order to instill fear in his congregation and persuasively explain to them that, aside from faith and the pleasure of God, one would be rapidly and eternally damned to Hell; Miller, on the other hand, exploits allegory, characterization, and imagery throughout the play The Crucible in order to fervently articulate his disdainful attitude regarding McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Jonathan Edward’s use of imagery, metaphors, and symbolism in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in order to instill fear in his congregation and reveal the message that, aside from faith and

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